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DevOps Shared Knowledge – Better Software Magazine

DevOps Shared Knowledge.

I’m always talking about the importance of driving DevOps through shared knowledge. As I see it, the only way to drive DevOps is by defining processes and using tools that can facilitate the conversation between developers and operations. Keeping secrets have never worked well.

In many cases DevOps shared knowledge means implementing solutions for software builds and deploys which can facilitate knowledge share between development, testing and operations. Builds and deploys can be extremely difficult, with a million little pieces fitting together. The challenge is to create sustainability that can be exposed to all individuals on all teams, no matter what their expertise. Everyone should be able to determine if a software build was executed with debug turned on, or what server updates are needed for a software deployment.

A common barrier to DevOps shared knowledge is the overuse of one-off scripts. All to often, developers write one-off build and deploy scripts and then expect other individuals to tweak and use them higher up in the life cycle, like testing and production control. This is quite impossible. Most DevOps tools today move you away from one-off scripts to Playbooks, plug-ins and services that can be reused and are easy to understand. Adding to the difficulty is the way in which these scripts are executed. Often times Continuous integration servers like Jenkins can confuse the issue as upper management is told that everything is automated by ‘Jenkins’ when this is simply not true. Yes, Jenkins executes the scripts, but the scripts are far from automation.

I’ve recently been published in Better Software Magazine on the topic of DevOps. Is is certainly worth the read if this topic has caught your interest. But in short, to improve your DevOps you must drive DevOps through shared Knowledge, achieved by solid processes and tools. Go to :www.stickyminds.com/better-software-magazine-volume-issue/2013-01